Letting Perfectionism Go

“I was craving the straight and narrow path that I had arbitrarily created for myself without really any experience to base it upon,” Valerie Jarrett says. “It’s just what I thought should make me happy.” And then Jarrett hit a wall. In this intimate chat with our chief content officer, Elise Loehnen, Jarrett shares the path she took from a law firm in Chicago to become Barack Obama’s senior advisor in the White House and family confidante. She talks about being a single mom and how she learned to admit when life was hard, ask for help, and stop trying to be so perfect. Her stories show a different, more adventurous, and hopeful way to build a life of purpose—however you define purpose in your own life. (For more, see Jarrett’s new book, Finding My Voice.)